Dakota State University

College of Education
LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Name: Reanna Fitzgerald

Grade Level: 4th Grade
School: North Fork Elementary
Date: September 20th, 2019
Time: 8:20-9:05am (PST)

Reflection from prior lesson:

Thursday’s lesson went well. The students were a little squirmy this day but overall the students
were responding well to the questions that I was asking them during the reading. Throughout my
reading, I did have to separate multiple students from each other because they were off topic and
not focusing on expectations. Once these students were separated, they were able to focus more
on the text and include themselves into the class discussion. Another suggestion from Thursday’s
lesson was to mention the expectations of tracking. The expectation is that students are following
and tracking in their books with a finger guiding them across the pages or they use the end of the
pencil. Many students will lose their place and not ask where we are at on the page, so they will
sit there lost for some time before Mr. Kamel or I walk pass them and they ask us while we are
reading. Before we begin reading, I will have a note at the bottom of my vocabulary that shows
kids, if they are lost tracking, to first ask a nearby friend for help then if that friend doesn’t know,
they are directed to ask a teacher. I noticed this a lot when I had students read the dialog of the
characters in the story, they wouldn’t know where we were at when it was their time to read. For
Friday’s lesson, I plan to let kids read paragraphs of the novel instead of the exact dialog of the
characters. Before beginning vocabulary on Friday, I will also ask students to make sure that
they are next to people who are good for them to learn next to. If they are not, I will expect them
to make the 4th grade choice and move themselves. If they don’t move I will give them a chance,
then the first time they are off task or chat during a time they aren’t asked to, I will have them
move immediately to cut down on class disruptions. As far as responding to questions I pose to
them during the reading, the students did a great job of using evidence from the text to justify
their answers. This is a skill area that is still difficult for 4th grade but I’m impressed with the
growth the students have demonstrated to me throughout this reading.
The overall lesson did take awhile to get through. We had to complete the read aloud during our
flex time right after our Tier 3 (FLEX) time and during that session the students completed the
exit ticket. There were some students who struggled with this activity, however the majority of
the class really tried their best to use evidence that was found in the text to support their opinion.
We will be doing this same style of exit ticket for Friday’s lesson.

Lesson Goal(s) / Standards:

RL.4.1 REFER TO DETAILS AND EXAMPLES IN A TEXT WHEN DRAWING INFERENCES FROM THE TEXT.
RL.4.3 DESCRIBE IN DEPTH A CHARACTER IN A STORY, DRAWING ON SPECIFIC DETAILS IN THE
TEXT.
SL.4.1 ENGAGE EFFECTIVELY IN COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSIONS.

Lesson Objectives:
By the end of today’s reading, students will use details from the text to describe characters,
setting, and events with one or more piece(s) of evidence to support their claim.

Materials Needed:
● Promethean Board/Projector
● ELA Notebook (Each Kid)
● Lunch Money Book
● Pencil
● Sticky notes

Contextual Factors/ Learner Characteristics:

This is a large class of 28 students. We have 3 students on IEPs and 2 students on 504s. The
students have the choice of sitting on the floor or grabbing chairs from the side to sit in. One of
the students on a 504 has poor eyesight and must be seated near the front of the classroom in
order to see the board. There are about 3 students who need more support and reminders to track
during the reading. Two of these three students are on a check-in-check out system and it’s
important to check in frequently, not only for their best interest but also to make sure we are
recording correct behavior data. These students should be in close proximity to the teacher
during the reading. One of these students is a slower writer and will be pulled back to the back
table to receive extra one on one support from my cooperating teacher, while the rest of the
students continue the vocabulary assignment.

Note: Our ELA block is from 8:20- 9:40. Reading is placed for 8:20- 9:05. In this book, Lunch
Money, there is quite a bit of reading that has to be done during this time. Some days where we
have longer readings, we finish the reading from 1:45-2pm, after their Tier 3 (SOAR) time. If
this is the case, students will have the option not to track during this time and they are still held
accountable for the exit ticket.

A. The Lesson
1. Introduction (Vocabulary: 8:20-8:30 Summarizing/Sharing Objectives: 8:30- 8:35/8:40)
Vocabulary:
● Have ELA notebook projected with the vocabulary words displayed on the screen. Have
students copy the words and go around checking to make sure all students are on pace
with the class expectations.
● Read vocab words aloud, chorally as whole class.
● Define the words for the class, using sentences for examples, I’ll give my examples of
sentences while the students are writing down the definitions. Have students give their
own sentences for notorious to make sure they understand how to use that word (call on 3
kids).
Words for these chapters:
● quarrel - heated argument
○ Sentence Example #1: “Ms. F made the poor decision of picking a quarrel
with Mrs. Pearl.”
○ Sentences Example #2:→ *Student Name* I’m just going to use you as
an example if that’s okay? “*Student Name* started a quarrel with his
mom and he ended up getting grounded.”
● notorious - well known in a bad way
○ Sentence Example #1: “Mr. Kamel and Ms. F are notorious for having the
best slime parties in the whole school!”
■ Have students agree/disagree with my sentence, have one student
correct my sentence, then ask students to share their own
sentences.
○ → Let students have the chance to give sentence examples. (2 students
for examples) The other students will have thumbs ready to agree or to
respectfully disagree.
● dopey - dumb/stupid
○ Sentence example #1: “My dog can be a bit dopey at times because he
constantly runs into the screen door when it’s closed.”
○ Sentence example #2: “I don’t want to say my brother is a little dopey, but
he did think it was a good idea to jump off our roof.”

● getting attention/ relating to past experience and/or knowledge

● “5, 4, 3, zero voice in 2, zero voice in 1. Alright and focus.”
● Yesterday we read chapters 9 and 10 of lunch money. Can someone summarize one of
the main events that happened in these chapters?
 ○ Students may talk about Mr. Z’s and Greg’s conversation from chapter 9 →
About why him and Maura don’t get along because they are too much alike
and stubborn, about how Greg wants a lot of things in his life and he wants to
be super rich.
○ Students may also talk about how Greg rode home with Maura and her
mother → talk about how Mrs. Shaw talked the whole ride home and told him
about all their family blood stories from the past.
○ Students might mention how Greg’s brothers responded to his black eye →
they teased him that a girl did that to his face.
○ One of the main things aside from Mr. Z’s and Greg’s conversation is that
Maura called Greg → why Maura called Greg and how Greg responded to the
phone call.
● creating a need to know/ sharing objective, in general terms
● “Today we are going to continue reading Lunch Money, really focusing on getting details
about characters, settings, and events from our text.”

2. Content Delivery (8:35- 8:55 & shared reading/ read aloud/ discussion)
● We will begin on chapter 11, page 103. As we read, I will pause for students to chorally
read and fill in the blank word. For paragraphs, I will ask students to read aloud for me.
When this time comes I will simply say, “Reader Please” and “thank you” when they are
all finished reading. As we read, students are expected to be tracking the reading with
their finger or a pencil. When we finish reading chapter 11 as a class, I will give the
students the chance to close their books and just listen to reading (no tracking required)
or students can choose to still track in their book. Chapter 12 will be a read aloud, with
me doing all the reading and asking questions to the students as they are listening.
Questions to ask during reading:
● Pg. 108 - “Why is Maura’s note ‘a lot to take in all at once’ for Greg?”
○ The expectation is that students will be able to refer to the language that the
author used in the text to back up their claim. If students are struggling with
getting evidence from the text, I will display page 106-108 under the document
camera and ask them to look at these pages to find evidence that backs up their
claim. Students may describe Greg’s physical or emotional reactions to Maura’s
note.
● Pg. 109 - “What do you think Maura has to show Greg?”
○ Students may reference the note that Maura wrote to Greg during social studies.
This is a general and very open ended questions. Higher level students may be
able to infer that she wants to show him a new comic she’s making, but others
 might struggle drawing this inference. If there are not many hands raised, students
may turn and talk to a neighbor to gather ideas to share.
■ Choose 1-2 students to share their thoughts.
● Pg. 112 - Maura is beginning to understand more about comics. What does this mean for
Greg?
○ To guide students to find an answer to this question, I may add on “what does this
mean for his business? Is Maura more or less of a threat to Greg’s company?”
■ This is a back-up question. If this question is asked, we will do a turn and
talk and have 1-2 students share their thinking.

3. Closure (10 minutes)

“We have one more question to go over before we end our day. We will use this as our exit
ticket.”
● Pg. 115 - “How does Greg feel after shoving the comic back in Maura’s face and
insulting her?”
“Remember that our goal today is really to use details from the text to explain characters, events,
and setting. When you are answering this question make sure that you are pulling evidence from
the text in your response!”
○ For this question, students will have a written response on a sticky note as their
“exit ticket”. Students will be promoted to cite evidence from the story to back up
their claim. The responses to this question will be written on the front of their
sticky note and their names will be written on the back of the note. Mr. Kamel and
I will read their responses to check in on how well they are able to pull evidence
from the text to back up a claim. When we finish reading over the exit tickets,
students will place the sticky note in their ELA notebooks.

● Students then will transition into writing.

B. Assessments Used
Informal Assessments- This mostly takes place through conversation. Our class will listen to the
read aloud and read along, while answering questions about our reading book or while sharing
sentences for vocabulary. In vocabulary, about three students will share a sentence and the other
students who are not sharing a sentence will have “their thumbs ready”. When students share, the
other students will either put a thumbs up for they agree or a thumbs down for respectfully
disagree. I will call on a couple students if there is disagreement that the word does or doesn’t
make sense and have those students justify why they think the sentence either makes sense or
doesn’t make sense. When we are reading, the questions I ask the students are driven around the
reading goal that we are working on. When students are answering the questions, I will look
specifically for words that are used by the author in the story. If a student makes a claim without
having evidence for their answer, I will let them try to grab that evidence or call on another
student to help them find evidence from the text. This will be a good teaching moment for those
who make accurate claims but still need support finding the evidence from the text that backs up
the claim. When students are discussing the answer to the questions I pose to them in a turn and
talk style, I will be listening on the discussions that are going on between the group of students to
monitor their focus and accuracy of conversation. If I hear specific comments from a
student/group I will intentionally call on this group or that student to share with the whole class
what they said during the turn and talk.
Exit Ticket- At the end of the lesson, I will have students answer our final question on a sticky
note. The response to the question goes on the front and student names will go on the back.
When the students are finished with their response, they will stick the note on the easel white
board. Mr. Kamel and I will read the responses to check how well students are able to use
evidence from the text to back up a claim. Later, students will put the sticky notes in their ELA
notebooks.

C. Differentiated Instruction
There is a student who needs extra support and time to write the vocabulary. He is provided with
more one on one instruction at the focus spot in our classroom. This desk is located at the front
of the classroom, close to the board. If a student is a slower writer, definitions can be shortened
for this student and when this student asks for help, a teacher may scribe some of the words for
him.
Turn and talk method- when a question I ask stumps the whole class and not many hands are
raised to contribute to the conversation, I will ask the students to talk with a partner before
sharing.

Just a note: This book is typically introduced at the end of the school year. Some students have
a harder time accessing the vocabulary in the text. As I read, I may define more words that were
not included in the vocabulary. Also, retrieving evidence from the text is currently a skill that
this 4th grade class has not mastered YET. Prompting will be essential to assure students are
citing evidence from the text.

D. Resources
ReadyGen Unit 4 Lesson 1 (Teacher’s Curriculum Guide)